Welcome To The School

20

"Everyone, it's morning, you need to get up! Ellowyn, Eijeh, are you up? Are you awake? Ellowyn, please stop ignoring me! You're going to be late again, and you know how annoyed Miss Wells gets if we're late repeatedly!" Blair was standing over Ellowyn's bed, trying to persuade the much shorter boy to get up. Eijeh was watching from his bed, pretending to be asleep. At this point it was a daily routine. They'd been in classes for a month and three days at this point, attending classes by day, doing homework by night, and on weekends relaxing or fighting or just having fun. Eijeh would've felt perfectly content, if it weren't for one thing. Hayden still wasn't speaking to him, and it didn't seem like they would for a long time. It had caused a rift between him and Vesper as well. He wasn't sure if Hayden had told her about the cause of their argument, but she mostly ignored him or avoided him as much as she could. Adira, on the other hand, seemed to have decided to take Eijeh's side, having told him, "It's sort of weird, but you feel like family." Although he wasn't overly sure what to think of that, it was nice to have someone on his side. The rest of his friends were trying to stay neutral. Even Zia had stopped going out of her way to glare at Hayden, instead spending a lot of time with Ellowyn, when she wasn't dealing with her cray-cray roommate.

"Fine! Fine. I'll get up! Just lemme...coffee..." Ellowyn sleepily reached for the cup of coffee he always kept on his bedside table. Eijeh was a tea fan, Ellowyn adored coffee, even though he was hyper enough already, and Blair preferred hot chocolate with whipped cream, marshmallows, and, occasionally, sprinkles. Eijeh watched with mild amusement as Ellowyn sat up and tipped the cup, before frowning. "It's not— Where is it??" As per usual, the cup didn't have a drop of coffee in it. Eijeh and Blair knew he'd most likely drank it during the night. Blair said so, adding that it 'would've gone cold during the night anyway'. Ellowyn made a noise like a very confused duck trying to be a cat/owl thing. "But— I put it in a cup!" The shadow of a smile appeared on Blair's face. "Precisely. It would've gone cold."
"But it was in a cup!" Ellowyn protested, seemingly perplexed on how coffee could've gone cold in such a brilliant invention as a cup.
Blair sighed and lifted Ellowyn up easily. Like a child, he squealed and thrashed in his best friend's grip. Blair smiles and swung him round, before putting the much shorter boy back on the ground with care and turning to Eijeh. "Are you going to keep pretending to sleep, or are you going to get up?" Eijeh laughed and threw off his covers.
"Alright, I'm getting up."
"Good."

Eijeh shrugged on his jacket as he left the dorm. He waved goodbye to Ellowyn and Blair, who had a different schedule to him. He turned from shutting the door to see a familiar head emerge from the dorm diagonal from his. Hayden was smiling, an expression Eijeh hadn't seen for a while as Hayden always seemed guarded or sad when Eijeh saw them. As Hayden noticed Eijeh, their expression shifted from joyful to sorrow. They shouldered their satchel and began to walk away. Eijeh sighed. "Hayden—"
"What?" Hayden snarled. Eijeh took a step backwards at their tone.
"Hay—"
"Don't. Call. Me. That." They hissed. Then they schooled their features into a mask of cold indifference and surveyed Eijeh disinterestedly. "You know, I'm surprised you're still alive. Let alone unscathed. What with all your putting your life on the line all the time."
"I don't put my life on the line." Eijeh responded, hearing his own voice come out seething and disgusted.
"Whatever. Now, what do you want?"
"I just— You know what? Nevermind. Stay away if you want. I don't give a damn. Just don't expect me to apologise. Seeing as I did nothing wrong." His voice was cold as he turned away and stormed down the corridor. However, Hayden had soon caught up.

The two former best friends walked to their first class in silence, each hiding their own pain.